<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>screaming the name of a foreigner's god by debitchery</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25601878">screaming the name of a foreigner's god</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/debitchery/pseuds/debitchery'>debitchery</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Old Guard (Movie 2020)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Based on a Tumblr Post, M/M, i Do describe a cock at one point though so there is your warning for that!, is this blasphemy? kind of. but it's for a worthy cause!, lots of art talk, nicky/joe is technically in the background but joe's love for him is oozing out of this thing, poetic ramblings, that cause being worshipping nicky</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 06:33:10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,059</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25601878</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/debitchery/pseuds/debitchery</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>It was a tragedy, the loss of his life’s work. He can still smell the burning of all the different canvases in his nostrils, the burn of their ash lingers inside of him in ways he fears will never leave him. It was awful, but that wasn’t the worst of it, not by a long shot.</p><p>The worst part is that humanity just lost the last glimpses of what may have been God’s true face, and he is alone in his grief for him. Alone as he mourns a face he’s come to know better than his own.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>169</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>screaming the name of a foreigner's god</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>based on this post cobaltkicks made on tumblr and my rambling tags i left on it:  https://debitchery.tumblr.com/post/624545164562661376/shout-out-to-the-museum-curator-whose-mission-it</p><p>"shout out to the museum curator whose mission it is to collect all these sketches of the same man (nicky) that are littered over literal centuries by dozens of anonymous artists (joe) before copley does a gentle bit of arson on their collection. rip."</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>For countless years, the world has asked: “What truly can break a man beyond repair?”</p><p>Some say loss, and the crushing grief that comes alongside it. Others deem it must be a man’s rage, his blind fury burning him alive. Even further, there are those that say only love can render a man to his most irreparable. </p><p>Angelo would proudly correct everyone of these believers as they argue their cases for each; there is no point to fighting when they were all right, all at once. He would counter with a question, and ask that if just one of these emotions could break a man, what happens to the man forced to feel all three at once?</p><p>What would you call him?</p><p>Is he left hopeless, as meaningless as the cloud of black smoke he found drifting without aim through a clear evening sky when he came to his sanctuary just a week ago?</p><p>The fire was horrible, as was the ruling that the fire supposedly was an accident. He was told it was caused by his lightboard being plugged in for too long in what was apparently a faulty outlet he’d never been informed about by his landlord of his rented out studio. It was perfectly plausible, believable enough that the insurance company would take the fire officials word for it. He wouldn’t be made to pay much for this accident, he would even be paid for the things that money and fancy furniture stores couldn’t replace.</p><p>What was not perfect, nor plausible was that this faulty, fiery outlet would seek out all of his files, all of his sheets of various paper types and shapes, even the canvases he’d hidden under lock and key. </p><p>He said this to the fire official when he was allowed back in, and hearing that there was nothing he could do in the man’s barely hanging on french accent left him furious, and with an underlying sense of understanding for every francophobe he’s read about through so many social media sites. Hell, if he allowed himself to dwell long enough, he is sure he could learn to hate the whole country as he thought of the man’s tone telling him that nothing could been done to repair this aching his heart, the man’s pitying look he gave as though he could even come close to knowing a loss like this.</p><p>He felt empty, cold and broken over the knowledge that he’d lost the most inspirational muse of all time; a man he never knew but would give his life for, he knows with certainty.</p><p>He knows it in the way he’s stayed up the last week wishing it were him that burnt into nonexistence, in the way that the mystery muse’s eyes are carved into the backs of his eyelids. Angelo knows he loved this muse in the same exact way all of the artists that have drawn him had to have loved him, something bone-deep and full of worship.</p><p>This man was more important than the ash he left behind, Angelo knew in his core.</p><p>His name was passed down throughout his family, meaning consistent throughout every period change. He was born to be a messenger of God himself, to spread his word and his image and his unrelenting sense of hope, and instead he allowed every trace of his God to melt away. </p><p>This man’s was far too important to disappear like this.</p><p>This man he’d spent years searching in centuries worth of art. The man seemed like the photo definition of what a muse should be, being found in all the artforms a tired art student searching for a final project could imagine. </p><p>He’d gathered evidence of him from all over the world, from throughout a millenia; from the rushed drawings on scraps of parchment that hung in the various shoppes and inns in his mother’s hometown in Malta, to the painting dated over two hundred after the last of the Maltese one’s that he found in the backroom of a rundown local museum in a small town in Germany, notecard found with it stating after thorough testing was found to be painted with blood and came with a poem scrawled on the back relaying the pain of a soldier longing for the touch of <em> “his blessing”, </em>to the graffiti he’d found on the wall of a rundown factory just a few years ago in Paris, the spray painted masterpiece he’d snapped pictures of was just a headshot of the man with moons as his irises, a cross around his neck. Even messy and dripping down the beige of the brick, the muse’s face shone through, even in his expression alone.</p><p>He knew this man’s body, his face, better than he knew his own. The pale, slender man that seemed to carry a strength men should fear without ever needing to convey it through his pose, only shown in the way his body is always drawn without a scar or blemish covering it, even when the red of blood marred his features. His gaze that easily would have left Angelo willingly dropping to his knees, for reasons he felt more than he knew to explain, if it were anything but a scratch of lines on a paper. </p><p>He was sure that this man was as close to God as humanity would ever be allowed to get, and now he was lost to a ruthless and unforgiving flame.</p><p>The muse belonged to a lucky bunch throughout so many years, and decades, and centuries. His image existing in such obscure places that he was sure that he’d collected every trace of him from all around. </p><p>This search and collection for this ethereal man was Angelo’s and his alone. </p><p>Now he is alone as he mourns him, drinking himself into something even more pathetic on the steps of the bed and breakfast in Malta that he’d spent countless summers in. His childhood graced by waking up to see his muse’s face on the wall on the inside of a bible cover.</p><p>It shaped him, his entire identity. Who was he supposed to be without him?</p><p>Apparently the answer was a drunkard.</p><p>It was the third afternoon in a row that he’d allowed himself to waste away on these steps, whiskey in hand as the tourists side-eyed him and the locals watched out, a sad and knowing look in their eye, just as he had done day in and day out for the last week after he spent the majority of his money and ran back home, away from his grief and leaving it to rot in L.A, where it belonged, with that pitying, asshole of a fire official to clean it up for him.</p><p>It was very possible that this experience was making him hate the french for no good reason, right along with the rest of the world.</p><p>Angelo heard the mumbles, the grumbles and judgements people cast his way as though they thought he wouldn’t hear. They were endless, but this couple’s was different; more apologetic than pitying.</p><p>He listened to them mumble for a bit, barely audible, before a darker skinned man with soft, kind eyes sat by his side with a sigh that seemed odd coming out of someone so young. His voice was smooth and reassuring, like he was soothing a spooked stallion, but for some reason he couldn’t seem to let himself get defensive when this man asked him to share his pain. </p><p>And share he did, allowing the shattering combination of love and, rage, and loss course through him as he tried to summarize his downfall, the other man’s eye’s never judging, never pitying, only seeming to convey a deep sense of understanding that Angelo couldn’t imagine beginning to comprehend.</p><p>Then, after he was finished and a tear was still running its course down his cheek, the sweet man that had introduced himself as “Joe” had just smiled at him softly, unshed tears of his own making his gentle eyes shine. Joe placed a hand on his shoulder, pulling out a notebook and asking for him to describe this muse, pleading for the opportunity to keep his memory and impact alive in any way. </p><p>The sincerity of his question should have made him snort, should have made him question the man himself on why he’d waste his time on a lost cause like this on such a beautiful morning, especially when his partner should still be lingering somewhere close by, but instead he was left nodding desperately, clutching at that hand on his shoulder like the lifeline it so clearly was meant to be. </p><p>Angelo described his lord’s eyes, his body, and the slope of his elegant nose. He spoke about the placement of the beauty mark on his face and the curve of his throat, even allowed himself to be laughed at as he described the shape of his cock, the prominent vein that ran nearly from its base to the cockhead itself. He tried his best to relay the importance of the shape of his smile, his hands, his gaze most of all, even as he stared off across the street, refusing to look at this rendition to better prepare for yet another disappointment.</p><p>His Lord was lost, his message of strength carried in the eyes and not the muscles and of a kindness that inspired countless would fade into the back of his mind eventually. </p><p>This was a selfish act. This was just Angelo refusing to accept his loss.</p><p>Joe finished his drawing silently, he hadn’t bothered looking over even as the stranger laid it face down on the steps where he’d sat. He cleared his throat and Angelo rushed to look up at him, the sun framing his head by now like a halo, like this <em> Joe </em> guy was God’s true messenger, sent to deliver him a gift. Like this stranger’s thoughtful look and scribble in a notebook’s was supposed to aid him in his suffering. The man whispered words of good luck and made his way up the sidewalk without another glance.</p><p>As soon as Joe made it a few paces away, he was grabbing the paper carefully and was left choking down a sob at what he found. </p><p>It was him, the muse. It was even more real than what he thought his mind and drunken babbling could have ever conjured up. Drawn in ink from a pen stolen off the front desk was the man he’d spent his life searching for and longing for in the same sense.</p><p>His inspiration. His muse. His God.</p><p>He was drawn as though he was modernized, leaning against the wall of this very bed and breakfast they were sat at, but his head was turned to face him so that his eyes seemed to stare back into Angelo’s own. He wept, he cried at his image in the way he’d imagine his ancestors that shared his name must have cried in their churches. This was a sign, this stranger’s gift was his salvation.</p><p>Looking out to find Joe in the crowd, desperate eyes searching in all too familiar, yet refined ways, he made eye contact that made his body feel as though it were drowning. </p><p>He knew those eyes, was right to swear to himself all those years that he would know them anywhere, from any time. He recognized Joe beside him by the jacket he was wearing but that was secondary to the way the blue of this man’s eyes made him feel, the gentle and loving consideration they held in his direction even from so far up the street. The eyes winked before the man turned towards Joe, lips shaping words that Angelo couldn’t understand, and he watched as Joe turned to smile at the man as though the force of his gaze was noting- or rather, that the gaze was familiar in ways words will never describe- and then they were gone. </p><p>He could have chased them, could have begged or pleaded for answers. He could have followed them and spied, potentially learning more and more about the miracle they seemed to represent. He didn’t do any of it.</p><p>Instead, Angelo was compelled to do the only thing that made sense to do when confronted by one’s God: he dropped to his knees, a broken man left reborn.</p><p><br/>
<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>hey hi i haven't actually written anything fic-related in over a year so this was strange, new and exciting! it is also terrifying because this is so different from the kind of things i used to write that i have no basis on whether it's good or not! it is something new for me so please tell me your opinion if you're up for it!</p><p>i like it though! and i'm proud of it so!! here it is! i might write more bc the old guard is my new hyperfixation, and you can find me at debitchery on tumblr too!!!</p><p>(and yes, i insinuated that copley sent booker to clean up after him because he knew that booker would make sure he didn't forget anything, he is Obviously the french guy!)</p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>